Entertainment

Danish PM Finds Plenty Of Running Buddies On Facebook

The Danes are a happy people. Among the happiest in the world, according to a number of studies. Take a look at this 60 Minutes clip if you don’t believe. One reason for their sunshiny attitude is perhaps their affinity for leisure. Like long, legally-enforced vacations. Or something as simple as a weekday run. Enter, Facebook user and Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who in a request to his support base of some 12,000 on the network (he apparently has quite a bit of first-hand experience with the service), managed to find 100 of his followers to join in a 4-mile jog this Friday.

Indeed, politicians aren’t well known for being very popular individuals. Sure, they get votes, and sometimes lots of them, but they don’t have wide swaths of friends in the public arena. Not true with Rasmussen, though, who currently inhabits the top 10 list of Facebook users. According to one of his aides, Soeren Lauridsen, the PM is the “European Facebook champion,” and lives among the most befriended networkers on the website, as list which also includes California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The occasion had by the prime minister and the people wasn’t without official purpose. It was “to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his leadership of the Danish Liberal Party, known as Venstre,” according to the BBC. Furthermore, it wasn’t the first that Mr Rasmussen connected with fellow Facebookers. He did so once before during the nation’s election campaign last November.

So, Facebook, begun in the dorms of Harvard, once had the college crowd as its sole focus. Eventually it expanded to attract a greater age bracket. Now it is a networking base for corporate purposes as well as political. Might it soon be used to lay some far-reaching diplomatic groundwork? Will the next president-elect of the US poke Gordon Brown to get feedback on proposed trade treaties? Perhaps discuss security over tea on Facebook Chat from the confines of Downing Street and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

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